The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday filed a supplementary chargesheet before a Delhi court in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2026 paper leak case, marking the formal conclusion of its probe.
The supplementary report names one additional private individual and incorporates detailed forensic findings from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), the Government Examiner of Questioned Documents (GEQD), and experts from Delhi University. Officials confirmed that no government or National Testing Agency (NTA) officials have been named or implicated in the leak.
Chronology of the Investigation
The paper leak case triggered widespread national debate and administrative overhauls following the cancellation of the May 3 exam:
- Cancellation & Background: On May 12, the NTA cancelled the examination after discovering that at least 120 questions in a privately circulated “guess paper” matched the official question set.
- First Chargesheet (July 28): The agency previously chargesheeted 13 individuals, including three NTA-hired subject experts—Manisha Gurunath Mandhare (Botany/Zoology), Prahlad Vithalrao Kulkarni (Chemistry), and Manisha Sanjay Havaldar (Physics)—alongside coaching center representatives and middlemen.
- Procedural Failures: The initial investigation highlighted that NTA had reused the same subject experts across multiple stages of paper preparation, allowing them continuous access to all four final master question sets.
Legal Provisions and Institutional Overhaul
The CBI’s prosecution rests on evidence from 360 witnesses, 422 documents, and 43 material objects, invoking charges under criminal conspiracy, cheating, breach of trust, the Prevention of Corruption Act, and the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024.
Following the probe’s findings, the Ministry of Education initiated structural reforms within the NTA, removing 50 staff members and replacing 600 subject experts while introducing a rigorous four-tier question-paper scrutiny framework.
